“The last word was spoken softly, kindly, and brought a rain of tears from the poor woman, who had clung to him so many years, and never heard that name from him before. Two days after that he died, and went to the God who deals justly with all His creatures. They bought him an elegant coffin, and dressed him in the finest of broadcloth, and brought him up to Millfield and buried him in the quiet graveyard behind the church, where he sleeps till the resurrection morning. Anna did not see him. She could not, but she suffered Madame Verwest to take Arthur with her to the grave, and so the mother and the son stood together while the coffin was lowered to the earth, and the solemn words were uttered, ‘ashes to ashes, dust to dust.’
“To the little boy the weeping woman said:
“‘That’s your father, Arthur; your father they are burying;’ but Arthur was thinking more of the sunshine, and birds, and flowers than of the ceremonial which had no meaning for him, and releasing himself from his grandmother, started in pursuit of a butterfly, and his loud baby laugh mingled with the sound of the dirt rattling down upon the coffin which contained what had been his father.”
Here Hal Morton paused, and pointed toward a half-closed shutter through which the early morning was breaking. We had sat up all night, he telling and I listening to this strange story, which I felt was not finished yet, for I must know more of Anna, and if anything had ever been heard from Eugenie, who, however bad she might seem, had shown herself in some respects a noble woman, with many noble instincts and kindly feelings; so I said to my companion:
“Never mind the daylight, Hal. We will order a tip-top breakfast by and by, and meantime you finish the story and tell me more of Anna and Eugenie. Did they ever hear from her, and did Anna and the child get Haverleigh’s money?”
“Yes, they got Haverleigh’s money,” Hal replied. “Anna and Arthur between them. It was theirs lawfully, you know, and there was a million in all. Think of Anna Strong a millionaire. But it did not hurt her one whit, or change her in the least from the sweet, modest, half-frightened woman who came back to Millfield in place of the gay Anna we had known. She did not wear mourning for her husband; she could not with that consciousness in her heart of relief because he was dead; but she always wore black or white, relieved perhaps with a knot of ribbon or a flower, and never was there a fairer sight than was she in this sober attire as she went about our village seeking the sick and suffering, and giving to the poor of the wealth that God had given her. She built her mother a handsome house on an elevation just out of the town, and a wing was added for Madame Verwest, who was so much one of the family that she could not leave them.
“And so the working in the shoe-shop was at an end, with the smell of wax and leather, and the horrors of Chateau d’Or were past, and there were people foolish enough to say that it paid after all to marry a madman when the end had brought such peace. To Eugenie, Anna had often written, and when all was over she wrote again telling of the death. Then the French inconsistency of character showed itself, and the woman to whom Haverleigh had always been kind and indulgent, wept and refused to be comforted, partly for her loss, and more, I think, because no provision had been made for her.
“‘Mon dieu!’ she wrote to Anna, ‘to think no little legacee pour moi, who have given everything for him. Not so much as one, what you say, one dollar, and I so poor, too. Not so much to buy one pair of gloves, and they so cheap at Au Bon Marche, trois francs et demi, and so good. Shall I send you a box of black—bah, non, ma cherie. You not wear that for he, but me, I must wear crepe, and bombasin, one leetle month, for my heart all French, all crepe, all ache, douleur, for the bad monsieur, who once love Eugenie. He have account at bank and I draw check at will, and have draw till only one thousand franc left, which you make two hundred dollars. Then what I must do? I grow old and want no more monsieur—bah! I hate him all. I look in my glass and see Eugenie most forty, with some gray hairs, some wrinkles, which paste will not cover. No monsieur want me for wife: I want no monsieur. So I must work; must hang out the sign, ‘Robes et Costumes. Madame Eugenie,’ and tie to it some bonnets and caps. Oh, but it will go hard after all the ease, to have so many girls round, and I must scold them all the time; perhaps I act again, but it I hate so much; it brings me les messieurs again, and I won’t have it. For you, you so happy with beaucoup de l’argent, no more nasty shop, no more wax, no more leather, no more smell-bad; but for me leather, and wax, and smell-bad, toujours, toujours. Mon Dieu, ’tis quite hard, and I give all to him, all, and if he not die, what you call him, crazy, he remember Eugenie in his—his little last testament, you call it, or some book like that. Oh, me, I starve, I die. I have the many girls around me with the bad to sew, and you have the silk, the satin, the opera, and the lunch at Trois Freres—bien—’tis right, but hard, and it takes so few money to set me up, quite. Me comprenez vous?’
“Anna did understand the hint, and sent to the Frenchwoman, who had done her great service, ten thousand dollars, which Eugenie acknowledged with rapture.
“‘Enough, with prudency and save, to keep me lady all my life. No need for the girls now to sew les robes; no leather, no wax, no smell-bad, forevermore, but highly respectable woman, who let rooms to les Americains and bring them cafe in the morning.’